


A Truth (Universally Acknowledged)

by chasingyellow



Series: Alone (Together) [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Am I obsessed with the idea of Jason reading Pride and Prejudice?, Books, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Guess who's actually reading that right now, Hurt/Comfort, I am, Jason Todd Has Feelings, Jason and Tim being bros, Jason wants his family back, Mostly Jason being confused, Pride and Prejudice References, The Batfam is the best, They're both nerds, and possibly a hopeless romantic, and sort of lonely, as they should - Freeform, he doesn't like them, if you're into that, jason todd is a dork, pride and prejudice - Freeform, sad Jason, sad family feels, sad tim, so i wrote a fic about it, they're both tired, tim drake is a dork, we may never know, yes - Freeform, you cannot convince me otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29305245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingyellow/pseuds/chasingyellow
Summary: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife"Pride and Prejudice.Tim really shouldn't have found it. He shouldn't have been in this room at all. But he thought it was about time that everyone stopped acting like Jason was still dead.ORTim snoops around in stuff that isn't his, Jason sits on a rooftop, and, eventually, they talk about books.
Series: Alone (Together) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083293
Comments: 14
Kudos: 70





	A Truth (Universally Acknowledged)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back!   
> It's been a little while, but I have here the last piece for my Alone (Together) series! I hope you all have enjoyed and if you haven't checked out the other one-shots, you might like them ;)   
> As a second note, I'm actually not opposed to continuing this lil series, so if anyone has anymore ideas, let me know in the comments. This is just everything that I originally had in mind.   
> Also, of course, I don't own Pride and Prejudice so all the quotes used are from Jane Austen. 
> 
> Now, to the exciting part. I'm absolutely in love with the idea of Jason Todd reading Pride and Prejudice. That's what inspired this lil piece. It actually ended up a lot longer than I originally planned so that's why the wait was a little long. My other inspiration was Tim and Jason being bros because that's my entire life.   
> So, I hope you all enjoy!   
> Much love  
> -a

_ Pride and Prejudice.  _

Tim turned the worn book over in his hands, feeling the soft pages beneath his fingertips. 

He really shouldn’t have found it. He really shouldn’t have been in this room in the first place. 

It was Jason Todd’s old room. 

Bruce had kept in the same way it’d been left when the second Robin had run off to Ethiopia. 

Tim didn’t really know what had happened—not the specifics. No one had ever cared to explain it to him. His childhood idol, one of the Robins that he’d followed and read about and  _ idolized,  _ had died. 

He’d run off and gotten killed and Batman had been furious. 

Tim had confronted him, and the rest of it was history, of course.

But no one had  _ explained it to him.  _

And then Jason Todd had come back to life, more furious than Bruce had been when he died. He’d been out for Tim. 

Because he was the Replacement. Because he’d taken Jason’s spot. Maybe just because he needed someone to take his anger out on and Tim wasn’t that good at fighting back— _ he’d never even been a good Replacement. _

Tim didn’t know. 

But he did know that  _ he  _ wasn’t Robin anymore. And he knew that Jason Todd was supposedly more traumatized now that he was insane. And he knew that it was Christmas Eve. 

Tim had been alone on Christmas more than once. More times than he cared to count out. It was far too depressing and he wasn’t a fan of dwelling on that sort of thing— _ he was used to it,  _ he always told himself.

The others—Dick and Steph and Duke, and apparently, even Damian—had talked to Jason over the last month. Checked on him. Made sure that he wasn’t dying again. Made sure that he was alright. 

The usual. 

But it was Christmas Eve and there was something about the thought of Jason Todd—the prodigal Robin, the superhero that had fallen so far, the Bat who lost himself—sitting in his apartment alone on Christmas Day, that peeved Tim.

Or worse, Jason could  _ not  _ be sitting in his apartment. Going out patrolling. Doing something stupid. Losing himself in the work so that he could forget that it was Christmas, forget that families were supposed to do Christmas  _ together.  _

Tim had done that before. He’d ended up falling in Gotham Harbor, because he’d been tired and distracted, and then been on bed rest for a couple of weeks with pneumonia. 

Tim doubted that Jason had someone to make him stay inside if he did get pneumonia from doing something stupid.

Also—this book was one of Jason’s favourites. 

He didn’t know that for sure. But the copy that he’d found underneath the undead boy’s bed was terribly worn and had dozens upon dozens of annotations in neat little lines along the margins.

Tim probably wasn’t supposed to be touching it—he definitely wasn’t supposed to be in this room—but he thought it was about time that everyone stopped acting like Jason was  _ still  _ dead. 

It was Jason’s book, and he obviously liked it. He ought to have it, instead of it being shoved underneath a messy bed, behind a locked door. 

_ Jason wasn’t dead.  _ Did no one understand that? His belongings weren’t relics.  _ He  _ wasn’t a relic. Didn’t they understand that?

Or maybe Tim was just feeling a little rebellious. Feeling a little hungry for the taste of danger. Jason probably wouldn’t appreciate the thought, he might even go back on his— _ sort of _ —promise to not try and kill him. 

Either way, he took the book with him on patrol. 

Because,  _ screw it,  _ it was Christmas Eve. And he had a dead Robin to find. 

  
  


If Jason was being entirely honest with himself, he didn’t feel like patrolling. 

He’d stopped a few robberies. Worked a little on a bust that had been plaguing him for a month now. Just watched for a while. 

He was tired and he was remembering way too many things about the holidays. He had been since he’d visited the diner with Stephanie. Since he made cookies. 

He’d known it would happen. He’d tried to prepare himself. 

The memories had come anyway, and somehow he ended up sitting on the edge of a building—he couldn’t remember which one—just trying to keep himself sane. 

At some point, he started struggling to keep his breathing even. He swore, jerking off his helmet. The freezing Gotham wind blasted his face, running through his sweaty hair like icy fingers, making the skin of his face tingle and burn, reminding him that he was alive. 

_ Strange,  _ he thought.  _ It was strange to think about it. Strange to think that he had died.  _

Strange to think that he was the same  _ person  _ who had died. 

It was hard to believe—it felt like such a long time ago, like such a different life. 

Like some sort of sick lie. 

It was almost like he had to remind himself. 

_ Jason Todd.  _ That was his name.  _ Jason Todd. Jason Todd. Jason Peter Todd. Jason _ —

“Jason?” 

He jolted, felt something in this chest tighten.  _ Because that was real.  _

“Hey, chill. It’s just me,” 

And he tried not to tense because he  _ knew  _ that voice. 

Timothy Drake-Wayne. 

The Replacement. 

And he was sitting down beside him. Jason had the sudden urge to scream, to just push the kid off the edge of the building because he  _ really  _ didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment. Because he didn't really want anyone to see  _ him _ at the moment.

“Just you?” Jason said, because he wasn’t a coward and he sure as heck wasn’t going to just push someone off a building. 

At least, not if they didn’t deserve it. 

Well—at least not on Christmas Eve. 

Not when he felt so unsteady himself. 

“Just me,” Tim echoed, shifting a little, like he was considering just running off. His next inhale was a little too loud and the movement to come and sit beside Jason was too jerky to be calm, too hesitant to be anything other than impulsive and  _ terrified.  _

If only he knew what was going on in Jason’s mind at the moment. 

“Wow, I feel really comforted, Replacement,” 

“Hey, would you rather have B come wish you a happy holiday?” Tim asked and shifted again like he had a row of tacks underneath him. 

Jason was silent for a second, mind whirring.  _ What was that supposed to mean?  _

“Sorry,” Tim said, after a tense second. “Sorry, bad joke,” 

Jason didn’t know if he should feel relieved or angry.

“You don’t have to tiptoe around my feelings. I’m not gonna something blow up,” Jason said that through gritted teeth because for a second, when Tim mentioned Bruce, he sort of  _ had  _ felt like blowing up. 

“But you might start shooting people,” Tim said, the words trailing off at the end like he didn’t really mean to say that at all. 

Jason huffed.  _ He really didn’t want to have this conversation.  _

“Why are you here again?” Jason asked. “And if your answer is ‘ _ it’s the holidays’  _ too, I might start to seriously reconsider the whole  _ trying-not-to-kill-a-Robin  _ thing.” 

Jason didn’t realize that he’d let something slip until Tim didn’t answer for a full minute. He hesitated, looked over at the kid, trying to read into the expression on his face, trying to determine what exactly Jason had said that he hadn’t meant to. 

It hit him at the same time that Tim blurted out: “You don’t want to kill me anymore?” 

Mentally, Jason swore. 

“As crazy as it sounds,” Jason said, trying desperately to keep his cool. “I’ve moved on from kids to crime lords,” 

“Jason, I’m being serious,” 

And, just like that Jason was trapped. 

Not really, because he could still shout. He could swear at him and blow up for some unrelated reason. He could drag Bruce into this and blame him for everything. He could prod at the Pit Madness bubbling in his veins and then do whatever it told him to. 

But this week—this month—had been different. 

This month, Jason had felt like crap. 

But, considering that Jason had been feeling a lot worse when he could barely form a coherent thought without the Pit telling him to shoot someone in the head, crap was progress. 

At least he was feeling something, right? 

Jason wasn’t entirely sure, but his mouth was already moving so he was doomed, anyway. 

“I’m being serious, too, Timbird,” 

“Oh,” was all Tim said, in reply to that. And, then, a beat later. “ _ Timbird? _ ” 

Jason’s psyche just really,  _ really  _ wanted him to fake his death, burning down his old safe house and create a new identity tonight, didn’t it? 

But before he could reply—mostly likely by calling him another, more explicit nickname—Tim was shifting again. “A _ nickname _ . And I haven’t even given you your present yet.” 

_ He was teasing him.  _ Jason realized, belatedly. 

Tim Drake was teasing him, had been, maybe this whole time. 

Another bad joke. 

“A present?” Jason said, dumbly, because he didn’t know how to reply to anything else. 

Tim looked over at him and this time his movements didn’t seem as jerky, as scared. Jason met his gaze, for a brief second, and Tim offered him a shaky sort of smile. 

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist,” Tim said, like the smart alec he was.  _ No wonder Damian got so annoyed.  _

“You get me a commemorative ‘I survived Crime Alley’ button?” Jason asked, mostly to be annoying and only partly because he actually didn’t know what to think about anything that was happening. “I hope you got me a Crime Alley button,” 

But Tim shook his head and, suddenly, the expression on his face was  _ serious.  _

Jason felt the blood drain out of his face, for a reason that he couldn’t put a finger on. “What?” 

Tim didn’t answer, just withdrew a little package wrapped in Christmas paper. He held it out, looking entirely serious. 

“Tim? What?” Jason didn’t understand why he kept repeating that, why he felt so shocked, why he felt suddenly unsteady because he  _ didn’t want anything from them.  _

From them—from Bruce or anyone who had anything to do with Bruce.

But Tim was shoving the package into his hands and it was becoming more and more clear that this wasn’t another joke. 

“It’s not much but…” Tim trailed off. “It’s not really a gift even. I just thought you’d want it back,” 

And if nothing else had set him off  _ that  _ did. His hands were shaking, his heart hammering in his throat suddenly. 

_ Back.  _

_ Back?  _

He didn’t want anything back. He didn’t want anything from his old life, from  _ Jason Peter Todd.  _ He didn’t want anything from Robin II. He didn’t want anything from that little kid who had somehow survived the alleys, survived  _ death,  _ and kept pushing because he thought that maybe this time he wouldn’t be let down. 

He didn’t want anything from that life. He didn’t want anything from Jason Todd. 

But his fingers were already scrambling at the edges of the wrapping paper— _ too fast, too fast, you idiot _ —and suddenly he wanted  _ everything.  _

He wanted everything that Jason Todd had. 

He wanted the laughter. He wanted the hugs. He wanted the patrols with Bruce. He wanted to have that strange, hesitant realization that  _ he had a family  _ again. He wanted to have a prank war with Dick. He wanted those after-school talks with Alfred again. He wanted  _ school  _ again. He wanted the English assignments that made him excited. The math problems that had him swearing, and throwing down his books. 

He wanted to drink Alfred’s hot chocolate. He wanted to sneak downstairs and watch TV when he was supposed to be asleep. He wanted to pretend to be sick just so that Bruce would take him to work with him and let him wander around the offices. He wanted to eat  _ Jello.  _

He wanted to jump off a building, and for a split second, feel the exhilaration of  _ flying  _ before the grapple caught him. He wanted to get lost in the Wayne Manor’s library and have Bruce find him hours later, with seven books started and a few finished. He wanted to challenge Dick with stupid dares. He wanted to spar with Bruce. He wanted to finish a good patrol and look over at Bruce and give him that  _ stupid,  _ cocky grin. He wanted Bruce to smile back,  _ because yeah, they  _ had  _ done good. _

He wanted to write poems and hid them inside his mattress because he was embarrassed even though he didn’t really care that much when Dick found them and then read them and then just sort of stared at them before shooting Jason a grin and saying  _ I wish I could write like that. _ He wanted to write in the margins of books and highlight special lines and then show it all to Alfred because Alfred always  _ got them.  _ Got him. Understand the wild, confused boy that he was. He wanted to sneak into the kitchen and steal cookies. He wanted to get caught and get forced to help cook and pretend to be bored, only to show up at the right time to help every night after that for weeks. He wanted to crash in Dick’s apartment and eat pizza and play video games until he couldn’t see straight. 

He wanted to fly around the world, and go to the stupid galas. He wanted to have Bruce show him how to tie a tie for the millionth time ‘cause he  _ kept forgetting  _ (or maybe he just liked the way that Bruce looked  _ proud  _ after he’d learned it again). He wanted to have someone sit with him in the kitchen at four in the morning when nightmares wouldn’t let him go to sleep. 

Jason Todd wanted  _ family  _ again. 

Unfortunately. 

“Jay?” Tim’s voice startled him, and he jumped, flinched, like the idiot he was. “Jason, are you okay?” 

Jason didn’t say anything, didn’t answer because he’d finally gotten the stupid wrapping paper off. 

_ Pride and Prejudice.  _

It was his copy.  _ His _ copy. 

Jason knew that. Knew that immediately because he recognized the worn part in the cover, and the blue pen that Dick had accidently gotten on it (Jason had been furious at him for weeks and Dick had teased him because it was a love story), and the dog ear from the previous owner that Jason had tried desperately to straighten out (but he’d gotten it secondhand so what could he do about it?), and the little line of his handwriting that he could already see peeking out from the ruined cover. 

He’d had this book before it all. Before Bruce. Before his mom had died. Before Robin. 

He’d saved up for it, weeks and weeks of keeping change from Willis. 

He’d been so proud when he bought it. So excited to show it to his teacher, to his mom. 

He’d been so  _ freaking proud.  _

“Where’d you get it?” Jason’s was hoarse, choked up. He didn’t even try to hide it. 

“In your room,” Tim whispered. 

“Why?” Jason asked, not looking at Tim. His fingers shook as he turned a page, read the first line. 

_ 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife'.  _

“Why’d you bring it?” 

“I thought you’d want it,” Tim said, simply. “It is yours, after all,” 

Jason didn’t answer. His mind, his focus, was lost in the pages. Flipping through, reading lines, remembering how he felt when he first read it. 

“All of it, Jay,” 

And, maybe for the first time in his life, Jason knew that he meant it. 

“Not anymore,” Jason said, his voice wobbling traitorously. 

Tim took a deep breath and when Jason looked over, the boy was just staring out at Gotham’s horizon. He took a breath and then huffed, sending a cloud of white out into the night air. 

“Just because everyone  _ acts  _ like—like your life is some sort of shrine…” Tim scrunched up his face, and Jason could  _ feel  _ him thinking hard about what he wanted to say. About how he could say what he meant. “People change, Jay,” He says, finally. 

“You think I don’t know that?” Jason felt a thrill of irritation. So quick to flare up that it felt fake. So quick to flare up that he knew he was trying to cover his other emotions. 

“Jason, just because you’re different doesn’t mean you’re not  _ you.  _ It’s just...we need to all stop thinking that.” 

And Jason almost told him to shut up. 

But, the thing was, Tim had said  _ we.  _ And for some reason that gave him pause. 

Maybe because Tim hadn’t said  _ you.  _ Or  _ they.  _ Or  _ Bruce.  _ Or  _ I.  _

And maybe Jason was just feeling soft from the gift, from the memories, from  _ everything,  _ but that  _ we  _ sort of felt like saying  _ together.  _

And  _ together  _ certainly felt like  _ family  _ at that moment and suddenly Jason was squeezing his eyes shut again against the pain of that thought and trying desperately to convince himself that he just needed to forget about all of this again. 

Maybe he just needed to find the Lazarus Pit and take another swim. Fresh out of the Pit he hadn’t had these memories, these emotions, this guilt. 

He’d been rage-filled and confused, but he didn’t have to  _ deal  _ with anything. He just acted on his first thought and let the government—or maybe the Bat—deal with his problems. 

That was probably where he went wrong in the first place. 

“Jason?” 

“What, Timmy?” Jason said, half to irritate him, half because  _ they are brothers, right?  _

“I know that you probably don’t want to come to the manor right now, or deal with Bruce or anything, but, uh,” Tim paused, and Jason opened his eyes and turned to look at him in time to see him swallow nervously. He watched as the kid rubbed a hand down his face, sighed, and then twisted his hands together like he was actually nervous. “But you could hang out. Er, I mean,  _ we  _ could hang out. Or—” Tim jerks his head, almost like he was about to shake it at himself but decided against it. “Like, not  _ hang out.  _ That would be...crazy, but we could just...” Tim swallowed and mumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a curse.

Jason sighed, wondered if Tim had always been this nervous around him or if it’s just because they’d tried to kill each other a few times before. 

Maybe that was the problem. 

Maybe Tim was so nervous because Jason was a killer and he was trying to reach out but he didn’t know when Jason was going to snap and just shoot somebody. Maybe him. 

And, yeah, he and Tim had talked about it. One day on patrol when Jason was feeling particularly  _ not  _ like being alone and the kid looked like he was about to pass out from just being a 10 foot radius of him. They’d talked and Jason had promised— _ sort of _ —that he’d  _ try  _ not to kill him. 

But nobody ever knew when Jason was going to snap. He didn’t even know. 

That was the problem with him, really. He was crazy. 

He kept trying to tiptoe around it, kept trying to blame it on other people. He kept trying to give it a reason, put a reason to the moods that he got into sometimes, to the memory lapses and the screwed up life that he’d somehow developed. 

But that was it, in the end. 

He was crazy. 

He’d died. He couldn’t come back as the same person. That wasn’t fair, that didn’t balance the scales of the universe, apparently, because he’d come back as some sort of insane, temperamental zombie. 

Sure, the Bats had messed up. Broken his trust a few times, overstepped the line a few times—and he didn’t even want to  _ start  _ on Bruce yet—but, if anything, this month had proved that he was the one not meeting them halfway. 

The problem was—he was trying. He just couldn’t reach halfway. 

He couldn’t reach halfway, because wasn’t the man that he used to be. He was tainted by the Pit and, worse than that, it had taken him too long to get to where he was now. To get to the point where he could  _ decide  _ who he actually wanted to kill 75% of the time. 

It had taken him too long to get there because he’d already tried to kill Tim. 

And he  _ didn’t  _ want to kill Tim. 

That thought was too clear in his mind as he stared at the tattered copy of Pride and Prejudice that Tim had brought him  _ as a Christmas gift.  _

Jason was struck with the thought.  _ He couldn’t do this.  _

He couldn’t keep living like this, right on the edge of his family, hurting them but never able to reach the point where everything would work. They kept reaching, kept doing things like  _ this.  _

But he couldn’t. 

He  _ wanted  _ it, all of it. But he couldn’t have it. 

“Er, I—Sorry, that was a stupid thing—” Tim started, but Jason cut him off. 

“Shut up, Timbird,” Jason said, and he wasn’t sure why because  _ he’d just decided that he couldn’t do this.  _ “You’re right.” 

Tim jolted. “Wait, actually?” 

“Yeah,” Jason cursed himself, mentally, but the words were already spilling out of his mouth. “And I already have an idea.” 

Tim looked like Jason had punched him in the gut—totally and completely off guard. “What?” He said, and the word sort of fell out of his mouth like his lips were numb. 

Jason flipped over the book in his hands, rubbed his thumb across the cover, and then smacked the book into Tim’s chest. The kid jerked backward, and then the movement seemed to catch up with him and he brought up his hands to take hold of the book. 

“Read it,” Jason said, smirking a little at the dumbfounded expression on Tim’s face. “And then we can ‘hang out’ and you can tell me about all your favorite parts.” 

_ That was...not what he meant to say.  _

He wasn’t going to have a freaking book club with his replacement. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do this. 

“But it’s...romance,” Tim said, wincing. “And it’s old,” 

“I thought you were the genius of the family,” Jason said, waving his hand. “And it’s a  _ classic. _ ” 

His brain was screaming at him. He wasn’t supposed to be doing this, talking like this. 

_ He couldn’t do this.  _

“A mushy classic,” 

“An elegant classic,”

“Oh, yeah,” Tim said and his voice gained a little strength like he was actually  _ talking  _ now instead of just trying to say the right things. “Because that’s elegant.  _ I’m so in love with you and your eyes are like stars in the heavens and your hands are softer than clouds and _ —” 

Jason was already shaking his head, trying to resist the smile tugging at his lips. The kid was even trying for a terrible accent. Must have learned that one from Dick. 

“No, no. I said  _ elegant. _ ” He waved a hand at the book. “It’s better than that. ‘My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you—’” 

Tim burst out in laughter. Honest-to-goodness laughed. Jason didn’t think that he’d ever heard the kid  _ laugh.  _ It was louder than he expected,  _ happier  _ somehow than he expected. Almost like Tim himself was surprised that he thought something was funny. 

Jason wasn’t...opposed to it. 

“What?”

“You’re such a... _ nerd _ ,” Tim said, looking back at him and having the audacity to look surprised. 

“You knew that,” 

Jason wasn’t sure if he knew that. Wasn’t sure if he’d actually had a conversation with the kid before this. Not sure if he’d even taken the kid seriously before this. 

“It was hard to tell, buried underneath your whole  _ kill kill die die  _ exterior,” 

“Hey, it’s  _ die kill kill. _ And it shows that I have the soul of a poet,” 

“The soul of a poet? And did you just make a death joke?” Tim raises an eyebrow at him, but he doesn’t look offended. Not like Dick or the others. He barely even looked uncomfortable. 

“What, you don’t joke about your coffee overdose? I know it’s happened,” 

Tim jerked a little at that, looking up from the book that he’d been flipping through absently. 

“What?” Jason asked. 

“You know that I like coffee?” 

_ Crap.  _

He couldn’t do this.  _ Why couldn’t he just do the smart thing, for once? Just ditch the kid and forget this all happened.  _

But,  _ no,  _ Jason just  _ had  _ to talk and now the kid was expecting to talk more, to hang out on patrols. To be around him. He’d want Jason to come back to the Manor. He’d want Jason to meet him halfway. 

He didn’t want to see the look on this kid’s face when Jason killed a man in front of him.

“Everyone likes coffee.” 

Tim flushed at that. “Oh. Yeah, duh,” 

Jason felt a swell of guilt at the way that Tim dropped his head again, studied the book so that he wouldn’t have to meet Jason’s gaze again. 

Jason felt a strange swell of guilt and he sighed, mentally. 

The stupid kid looked so  _ young  _ and so  _ disappointed.  _ Why did Tim want to ‘hang out’ with him, anyway? Why did he want to be around him? Why did he want to keep doing this when Jason obviously wasn’t getting any better. 

He wasn’t getting any better at resisting Tim’s sad face, either, which was probably why, “But I happened to know that you like it a little  _ too  _ much,” popped out of his mouth. 

He did know that. He knew that because he’d read Dick’s texts and he’d seen the kid and he wasn’t stupid. 

_ Why did Tim look so surprised that he knew that? That Jason noticed him?  _

“It’s not too much,” Tim said, immediately, like he’d had to defend his addiction way too many times in his short life. But he seemed to catch himself and he cracked a little smile. “And actually, I usually joke about the failing grades and the lack of life motivation.” 

Jason froze for a second, then saw that humor in Tim’s eyes. And he felt a strange swell of... _ pride.  _

_ Is this what it felt like to be Dick? All soft and  _ emotional  _ all the time? _

“See? A true drama-queen. You’ll love  _ Pride and Prejudice. _ ” Jason pronounced. 

“Doesn’t that imply that  _ you’re  _ a drama queen?” 

Jason shook his head, felt the corner of his lip tug upward. “Maybe,” 

Tim laughed again, but it tapered off too quickly. He sat there for a minute, staring at the cover of  _ Pride and Prejudice _ and looking like he was trying not to fall apart. He rubbed his thumb across the spine, and then looked back at the Gotham horizon. 

“Thanks,” Tim said, after half of forever. 

“You better give it back,” Jason warned him. “I’m  _ lending  _ it to you,” 

But Tim was shaking his head. “Not that. Er, yeah—that too. But...for everything else too,” 

“You’re the one who just  _ had  _ to deliver a Christmas present to a vigilante on the coldest night of the year in Gotham. Don’t you have a terrible immune system?” 

“No. I mean, yeah, but—” Tim groaned. “That’s not what I was talking about either.” 

Jason paused, his brain stalled. “I didn’t do anything,” 

“Just…” Tim rubbed at the back of his neck, sighed again, “Just—Merry Christmas,” 

And, then just like Bruce taught him, Tim stood up and leaped into the night.

Jason watched him go, and let the tension leak out of his shoulders. And, strangely, for a split second, he felt  _ okay.  _

  
  


Jason was halfway through his breakfast on Christmas morning when he realized that  _ Pride and Prejudice  _ wasn’t a book that he’d remembered. 

Jason stared at the ripped up holiday paper that he’d dropped on his counter on the way in after patrol and, somehow, he managed a smile. 

He  _ couldn’t  _ do this. 

But, every once and a while, it didn’t hurt to try. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, loves! Drink lots of water and listen to some good music.   
> As always, drop ideas, etc. in the comments. <333  
> -a 
> 
> p.s.   
> To anyone who read "Waitin' On the World to Change": stay tuned for a sequel. It'll be a one shot (or maybe a two-shot) about Dick. I've called the series 'Metamorphosis'. Sorry it's so long in coming! All the love!


End file.
